By Michael Gordon

31 July 2013 — 3:00am

The Greens would strip away all deterrents from refugee policy and aim to stop deaths at sea by dramatically increasing Australia's refugee intake and boosting the capacity of the United Nations refugee agency to process claims in Indonesia.

The pre-election policy to be released on Wednesday would also shut down detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island, give work rights to those in the community and lift the ban on people in refugee-producing countries coming directly by air to seek asylum.

It would also appoint an Australian ambassador for refugee protection to help broker a regional co-operation response modelled on the approach of Malcolm Fraser with Vietnamese asylum seekers in the 1970s.

The policy has been criticised by the government, and the Coalition's immigration spokesman Scott Morrison who says it ''won't stop the boats''. Meanwhile, bad weather had delayed the transfer of the first asylum seekers to Manus Island under the Rudd Government's agreement with Papua New Guinea.

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The Greens will strive for a more humane approach.Credit:Angela Wylie

Buoyed by polling showing only one in three voters trusts the major parties to ''handle refugees with care'', the Greens will market themselves as the only party offering ''compassion, legality and the only model for saving refugee lives at sea that has ever really worked''.

''If you want to stop the people-smuggling business, you have to undercut it, and that means providing a viable option that does not force refugees into the hands of people smugglers in the first place,'' says the party's spokeswoman on asylum, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Greens leader Christine Milne will propose a doubling of funding to the United Nations refugee agency to speed up assessment and resettlement of asylum seekers in Indonesia and Malaysia, and a 10,000 increase in Australia's refugee intake. One in three places in the 30,000 program would be set aside for refugees assessed by the UN agency in the region, including at least 3800 in Indonesia.

Senator Milne said the Parliamentary Budget Office has costed an increase in the humanitarian program to 30,000 at $2.5 billion over four years, a fraction of the amount spent on offshore processing.

A Galaxy poll commissioned by the Greens found that almost 50 per cent of voters did not trust either Labor or the Liberals ''to put caring for refugees before political interest''. The same proportion did not trust either of the major parties to ''handle refugees with care''.

''Both parties are moving so far to the right, it's difficult to imagine the next level of cruelty they could possibly engage in,'' Senator Milne told Fairfax Media. ''They are bringing shame on Australia in a national and global sense.''

Spending an extra $70 million a year to boost the UNHCR's capacity in the region was in line with recommendations of the Gillard government's expert panel and would ''take pressure off people feeling like they have no other option than to be on boats''.

The policy commits the Greens to restore Australia's migration zone ''to match our land and sea territory''; to guarantee legal review and community detention options for refugees who receive adverse ASIO security assessments; and to replace the immigration minister with an independent guardian for unaccompanied children seeking asylum.

Labor, Coalition critical

Immigration Minister Tony Burke told Fairfax Media the Greens answer to the boat arrivals and deaths at sea would not work.

''I dearly wish it was that simple, but the truth is with millions of asylum seekers around the world, a change in Australia's humanitarian intake of 10,000 is hardly going to stop the loss of life at sea,'' he said.

''If you're serious about the role of the United Nations, then I think you have to believe that our humanitarian quota should be filled in consultation with the UN, not selected by people smugglers.''

Mr Morrison also said he did not agree with the Greens plan, telling ABC radio that with so many refugees worldwide, increasing the intake would not make a difference.

''We don't agree that increasing the intake at the end of the day when you've got less than one per cent of the world's refugees actually getting resettlement . . . moving that dial by 4 or 5,000 either way is going to make any real difference,'' he said.

The Coalition's policy is to reduce the current humanitarian intake from 20,000 people a year to 13,750 a year, including 11,000 reserved for offshore applicants.

''Not one of those visas will be given to someone who has arrived illegally by boat,'' he told ABC Radio.

Mr Morrison said the risk of the Greens policy is ''you don't want to create Indonesia as a magnate for people to move into either''.

He said the Coalition's ''Operation Sovereign Borders'' was designed to stop people coming to the region.

Earlier on Wednesday, Senator Milne criticised the major parties for their asylum seeker policies, saying it was not a military or border security issue but a humanitarian one.

She also said that deterrence did not work when it came to dealing with asylum seeker flows. ''We've seen an absolutely horrible and farcical raising of the stakes,'' she told ABC Radio.

PNG solution

Under the government's policy, all boat arrivals will be sent to Manus Island for processing and eventual settlement in Papua New Guinea if they are found to be refugees.

The first asylum seekers bound for Manus Island had been scheduled to leave Australia on Tuesday evening, arriving some time on Wednesday morning, but a spokesman for the Department of Immigration on Wednesday confirmed the transfer had been delayed due to poor weather.

Arrangements were being made for the group to be sent to PNG as soon as possible.

They will be the first arrivals since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his PNG counterpart, Peter O'Neill, agreed to expand asylum seeker processing two weeks ago.

The initial group is likely to consist of only men, with women and children to be moved at a later date.

The fourth and final flight carrying equipment destined for Manus arrived in PNG earlier this week, with work continuing to expand the facility.

Mr Burke said on Wednesday that it would take about a day for asylum seekers in Australia to be transferred to Manus Island. People will not be sent from Australia, however, until health checks are complete.

The minister said the facilities at Manus Island were not yet ready for family groups, as he wanted them separate from single adult males.

''At the moment, I'm only comfortable with single adult males going across,'' he told ABC radio. ''I want to get the standards to a point where more can go across and I don’t believe it will take a long time to do that.''